“He asked advice of his sister. She asked mine. Perhaps she should have consulted you instead—or at least as well!”
“So you did persuade him to come back?”
There was a pause. Then Adam said slowly: “Since asking Thelma’s advice, he has learned that his trial appointment is to be terminated. The authorities find that he hasn’t the temperament for a tropical appointment, so that he has no option now but to come back. This means that he’s returning to England convinced that he’s—a failure. It may remain with his friends”
—
there seemed to Kathryn a cruel emphasis on the word
—
“to convince him that he is not. In the circumstances, I should like to be able to ask you not to seek him out, but of course you will meet as colleagues, and I have no right to presume to advise you on anything so persona
l—
”
When the door had shut behind him she glanced down at the table, at whose edge she had caught blindly. She saw its shape, the papers on it, as if neither were quite real. Vainly an inner voice was protesting:
“Let me go on believing that it’s only my pride that he can hurt! I don’t want to know the—the other thing!”
But she did know it. There was no escape. She had never yet been in love, but now she felt herself betrayed into loving against her will, and certainly against her judgment. She loved a man whose friendship and understanding thought might be for others, but were rarely for her. From her he kept them as private territories to be guarded with words that were edged with reserve, and even with scorn. He did not love her in return. He merely despised her.
Even on the spread papers before her his signature faced her, as if he had flung its boldness there to mock at her. She remembered the first time she had seen it. Had she known that which she could not escape now
—
even then?
CHAPTER FOUR
Dr
.
Simon Glenn
glanced at the treatment-trolley which Sara had laid up for him and uttered a single word: “Swabs.”
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Sara started guiltily and wished that she had not blushed as well. This was the first
trolle
y
she had laid up without su
p
ervision. Wh
y
, oh, why had she had to invite Dr
.
Glenn’s criticism by forgetting one of the most important items to be included?
He grinned. “All right. Happens on the best
-
regulated wards sometimes. Cut along and get me some, there’s a good girl.”
She stood at the bedside while, completely serious now and deeply intent upon his work, he did the dressing himself. She liked watching his deft, confident hands and wished that she need not be so embarrassed by the bold teasing he seemed to reserve for her. True, more than once he had intervened to save her from Sister Bridgeworth’s wrath when she had made some foolish mistake on the ward. And his manner to her before the patients was always perfectly correct. But when they met on the ward corridor or in the office her shyness was never equal to dealing with his gay bravado. What was more, she did not know whether she wanted to snub him or not
.
..
She took charge of the trolley, wheeling it down the ward, while he walked beside her under Sister’s watching eye. She stopped when they reached the sterilizer, but he stopped too. Under cover of the hiss of steam he queried: “Well, are you finding your feet at last?” adding with his infectious grin: “That means, of
course, have you succeeded in changing ’em for
a
couple of insensible blocks that can’t feel pain?”
Sara laughed and, encouraged, he said: “Come, that’s friendly of you! So now what about this off
-
duty that you’d like me to believe you never get? Are you off to-day, for instance?”
“Yes. Yes, I am,” replied Sara unguardedly. “But
—
but I’m engaged.”
“Ah me—the luck some chaps have
!”
“Who have?” Sara’s blue eyes were wide, puzzled.
“Why, the ones who forestall chaps like me with girls like you, of course!”
“But I’m going to see my sister
!”
protested Sara.
“You’re not serious?”
“I am. She is living with a Mr
.
and Mrs
.
Thorley, friends of Sister Clare’s, who is a friend of
mine.
She
—
Carol—is six, and Mrs
.
Thorley lets me go and see her whenever I’m free.”
Simon slapped himself upon his chest. “Six? My favourite age—for people’s sisters! Couldn’t I go along too?”
Sara hesitated.
“All right. I see I couldn’t. But couldn’t I collect you, bring you back to hospital? My car ought to have
been laid to rest long ago but
—
”
He broke off abruptly as Sara started, seeing Sister Bridgeworth bearing down upon them. Sister Bridgeworth began crisply: “Nurse, Nurse, why are you dawdling at the sterilizer? You should be down at the
Dispensary now
!”
And Simon escaped, though
not before he had slipped into the office to look at the nurses’ duty-list and to lay his own plans
...
He was not to know, of course, that the weather was going to be on his side, but when he went to a tele
p
hone booth that evening to look u
p
and telephone the Thorleys’ number it was pouring with rain, a circumstance which pleased him very much indeed.
It was Barbara Thorley who answered the telephone, just as Sara, having seen Carol into bed, was about to leave.
“For you, Sara,” smiled Barbara, handing her the receiver. “It’s a Dr
.
Glenn—from hospital, I suppose
—
wanting to knowing if, as it’s raining, he could call for you in his car.”
“Dr
.
Glenn? Oh
!
” Sara blushed deliciously,
but made no attempt to answer the message.
“I’d let him, I think,” advised Barbara, amused. “It
is
pelting.”
Simon arrived surprisingly quickly after that. (No one was to know that he had telephoned from only just around the corner!) And almost before Sara knew it she was tucked into the car beside him as it careered away in the darkness.
“Forgiven?” demanded Simon, not looking at her.
“I don’t know how you knew where to find me,” admitted Sara.
“Why, you told me yourself. I only had to look up Thorley in the phone book—and then take my courage in both fists. And if you’re not too angry with me, where shall we go now?”
“Go? Aren’t you taking me back to hospital?”
“Eventually, yes. But you aren’t on duty again to-night. I know, because I looked at the duty-list. So what about having dinner with me?”
“Oh, I can’t. I’m not dressed. An
d—
”
Simon glanced at her slim figure in its navy coat. “You’re perfectly dressed for where I’ll take you. It’s not far,” he promised.
Sara gave a little sigh that was not really a protest. After the pleasant comfort of Barbara’s home, going back to hospital supper always seemed rather flat, and she persuaded herself that having just one meal with Simon Glenn could not possibly commit her to anything more.
Simon, however, thought otherwise. Pleased with to-night’s success, as soon as they were seated in the quiet restaurant he had chosen he began to make plans for the future meetings they would have.
He beamed at her across the softly lighted table.
“We’ll go around,” he said. “I’d like to take you to Kew, but we’ll keep that for the spring. Meanwhile we can do some shows and
—
”
“But, Dr
.
Glenn, I can’t! There’s Carol, don’t you see? I
—
”
“Well, bring Carol along! There’s always the Zoo, and they say the animals are in pretty good coat just now
—
”
He broke off as Sara shook her head despairingly. He watched the fair, fine hair lift and fall again about her cheeks. Then he said gently: “I didn’t mean to rush you—Sara. And incidentally, people manage to call me Simon—off the ward. Let’s talk about something else if you’d rather. Tell me about Carol, won’t you?”
He
was
rather nice, Sara decided. And when she began to talk to him about Carol she found it easy to go on. When she had finished, Simon knew quite a lot about herself too.
Simon asked: “Well, will you take me to Mrs
.
Thorley’s next time you go?”
“Yes, I’d like to—if you’ll come.”
“If I’ll come!” glowered Simon.
“If I’ll come
!”
For their coffee they moved to the lounge where there were several knots of people having drinks or taking coffee, like themselves.
Simon said suddenly: “Do you see what I see? In the far corner—the new children’s man, Dr
.
Brand, with Thelma Carter and—yes, it must be Steven Carter, Thelma’s brother. I heard someone say in the common-room that he was coming back to the Wardrop, though nobody quite believed it.”
Sara leaned forward to look at Adam Brand, whom she had only seen at a distance, as well as at Steven Carter. In the nurses’ common-room most of the talk was of the personalities of Sisters, consultants and resident medical staff. But Kathryn, who saw more than anybody of Dr
.
Brand, seemed oddly reluctant to discuss him even with her, Sara. Sara supposed that it was because Kathryn was a Sister and she only a student. But it made her the more curious to see him at close quarters. And Steven Carter—she was curious to see him too.
Simon said: “Poor Steven!—back to Thelma’s apron-strings, everyone will say.”
“Steven Carter,” mused Sara. “That’s the doctor who asked Kathryn—Sister Clare—to marry him before he went out to Africa. Oh, but I shouldn’t have said that
!”
she exclaimed, ashamed of betraying Kathryn’s confidence.
“Don’t worry. It was common knowledge that he was in love with her and that she turned him down. Your Kathryn is no fool, and she probably knew that anyone who married Steven would be marrying Thelma too—more than any girl would take on.”
“She would have married him, anyhow—if she’d loved him,” protested Sara indignantly.
“Meaning that, if she had loved him, she wouldn’t have let any difficulty—Thelma, in her case—stand in her way
?
”
“Of course not!”
Simon’s glance was keen, intent, causing Sara to lower her eyes before his. “I’m glad you feel like that about it,” he said quietly.
The next moment he was nodding carelessly towards the other group and saying: “Well, if Carter has come back to ask Kathryn again, he may soon be able to offer himself solo. Rumour has it in our common
-
room that Thelma would like to have a stab at the
great Brand himself
—
”
“And they claim that men never gossip!” ventured Sara.
“There’s gossip,” retorted Simon loftily, “and there are ‘matters of public interest’. And the future fate of an important consultant comes into the latter category, I’d have you know!”
They laughed together, and then Simon looked at his watch. “Come on,” he said. “I’d better return you to prison—with many thanks.”
“It’s not prison
!”
“Do you really like it, then?”
“I love it!”
“Bless you, I believe you do,” said Simon. And his hand brushed briefly and lightly against her cheek as he helped her on with her coat.
Sara’s way to her room led past the Sisters’ bedrooms, and as she reached Kathryn’s door, Kathryn looked out.
“Oh, Sara,” she said, “you are much later than usual. You weren’t at su
p
per, nor in your room, so
I’d begun to wonder whether there was anything wrong with Carol? Come in for a minute and tell me.”
“No, Carol is fine.” Sara followed Kathryn into her room, taking a breath of fresh night air with her. “But I haven’t been at the Thorleys’ until now. I
—
I’ve been having dinner with Dr
.
Glenn.”
“With Simon Glenn?” Kathryn stared, then lau
gh
ed. “He’s houseman on your ward, isn’t he? I didn’t know you knew him so well.”
“But I don’t,” protested Sara. “It’s just that he’s so persistent and so—unpredictable that I found myself dining with him almost without knowing how I came to be there! He teases me a lot, but he’s kind and considerate on the ward, and he wants to meet Carol so much that he has made me promise to take him to Barbara’s next time I go. Barbara won’t mind, will she?”
Kathryn noting her friend’s glowing cheeks and bright eyes, was thinking that Simon Glenn, wanting to know Carol, could have found no surer way to Sara’s heart. But she suspected that Sara was attracted to him for his own sake, and she was glad. Simon Glenn, she knew, had a reputation for easy conquests, but beneath his veneer of gay self-confidence she believed he was sincere and good-hearted. He was clever, too, and she
kn
ew that he was earmarked for the next registrar’s post that fell vacant at the Wardrop. Somehow, set against her own heartache, this first budding romance of Sara’s seemed so fresh, so unhampered, so
real.
Sara was saying: “Do you know who was at the restaurant we went to? Your Dr
.
Brand, with Miss Carter and her brother, Dr
.
Carter
—you
know? And Simon—I mean Dr
.
Glenn—says that Dr
.
Carter is
coming back to hospital. Had you heard that?”
“I had, yes. Dr
.
Brand told me,” said Kathryn slowly.
“Did he? Yes, and of course he’d know because he knows Thelma so well, apparently. S—Dr
.
Glenn—says that their names are being coupled together, that
—”
“Sara, you’ve no right to repeat gossip like that
!”
The sharp rebuke of Kathryn’s tone was so unusual that Sara started with surprise.
“I’m sorry,” Kathryn said more quietly. “But common-room gossip is so cheap, somehow, though I know we all indulge in it when we’ve got nothing better to discuss. But when I’m tempted to it I try to think how I should hate to be the subject of it. Though I dare say, when I refused Steven Carter, I was.”
“Dr
.
Glenn knew about it, certainly,” admitted Sara rather shamefacedly. “But I’m afraid I did mention it to him before he told me he knew.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Kathryn wearily. “And anyone who didn’t know then will have been told since—by Thelma.”
“And are you—well, are you going to mind that Dr
.
Carter has come back, that you’ll have to meet him again? Won’t it be a bit embarrassing for you both?” asked Sara, with shy curiosity.